


Imaginary Prisons

by anniesburg



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon), 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series
Genre: Beauty and the Beast Elements, Eventual Romance, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Post-Death in the Family, Potential to get smutty but honestly idk at this point, healer reader, mini series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2019-09-17 03:18:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16966677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anniesburg/pseuds/anniesburg
Summary: The arrival of Dracula's castle in close proximity to the old Belmont Estate is nearly met with a world-weary shrug from the locals. An outlier decides to investigate the sudden appearance.





	1. The Drawbridge

**Author's Note:**

> is this cliché?? hell yeah, let's have some fun. probably a three-part series but i'll know for sure by the next chapter. enjoy!!

This place is an architectural nightmare that defies gravity. And it moved, once. Not any longer, of course which is what makes it just another tomb. Its outside intricacy doesn’t fully state just how dark it is inside, of how the rugs are soaked with old blood and the corners are filled with cobwebs. 

It’s so old, it must be haunted. You toe the line where the light ends and the shadows begin. Outside, it’s springtime and the glow of the sun cuts the peace of the grave. There’s a door-shaped hole in the black of the floor, illuminating the entryway. You’re very worried about leaving it. You wonder how many souls this castle’s seen and if any were eaten whole. 

There’s a shiver that runs through the spine of the building when you make your choice, stepping carefully away from the safety of mid-afternoon. Your hands shake around the handle of your basket, flowers and herbs barely fill the first third. It’s barely enough to cover your journal, the castle distracted you today more than it usually does.

This isn’t the first time you’ve walked this path in the forest, but usually you’re able to suffocate your curiosity about the ancient wonder that’s just appeared among the trees. Its close proximity to the old Belmont manor kept you at bay, as stories told to terrify children well into adulthood do. Usually you continue on. 

Not this time. 

Maybe it’s a good thing you brought flowers, whatever lives here might demand an offering. You’re unsure when or why exactly this castle chose here as its final resting place. Word travels as fast as it can but the last time it was seen was rather suddenly in Brăila before disappearing as quickly as it arrived. Why here, you wonder. What’s hiding here? 

A large throne room with a vertigo-inducing ceiling is easy enough to traverse. A few shallow steps lead to a central arch behind the vacant, high-backed chair. There’s an old, lost feeling here. This place has seen too much death, but where bodies should be there is only bare floor and crumbling stone. Traces of magic, real magic float and dance across the air. Someone burned here, someone froze.

Arched windows in the the much steeper staircase in the arch behind the throne room turn the gloomy stone a yellow colour. The stairs spiral up, up, up to a thin corridor and it’s there that the panic begins to emerge. With the way the place twists off into so many corridors, the fear of getting lost rises in you like heat does in the summer. 

The hallways run through the castle like cracks in a mirror, this space is gloomy and broken. You reach into your basket, picking up a daisy. Finding more of them should be easy enough, you begin to pluck petals. They land softly on the wine-red carpet, stained here and there with water and blood. Now you won’t, at least, die because you lost your way. 

It’s warmer up here, you note. Still no windows, not like the ones lighting up the staircase. Instead there are burning candles casting a dim glow on the floor, it sounds like there should be footsteps. There should be life. But it’s as quiet as the rest of the rooms, the immense size of the place doing nothing to make it feel more inhabited. It’s so eerie, so empty, you imagine laughter from down the hall that disappears with a shake of your head.

You carry on, dropping daisy petals past rows of closed doors. Most of them are locked, you discover upon trying their handles but some open to cold, cold rooms filled with old books and shattered glass. The wood panelling on some of the door-frames is splintered, like claws were dragged across their expanse. Someone tried to do harm here. 

The end of the hallway isn’t the end and it terrifies you. You can see where it’s supposed to veer off naturally but there’s another way to go, it looks like the mouth of hell. It’s just a gaping maw, circular and singed with no light inside it. Part of you wants to explore, another thinks that would be worse than monumentally stupid. 

You make up your mind eventually, backtracking away from the mouth and investigating the other side of the hallway. The doors that do open distract you from the little line of semi-needless daisy petals and how a few are spaced further apart from where you originally placed them. You don’t notice that any are missing. 

Only one door opens on this side to reveal something orderly, or at least not n full ruin. It’s a study with a desk and well-loved books. There’s sunlight here, shining in through the iron diamonds crossing the windows. You let out a sigh like content at having found the heart of the place, this must be it. You smile without really meaning to and take another step into the room. 

It looks nice here, a little less like a prison. The books are all shelved neatly and the only drawback, you soon find, is the shattered mirror shards on the floor. You’re careful stepping over them, looking at the golden light flooding in from the window onto the red-velvet chair. 

There’s a painting of a woman sitting demurely on the desk, holding a bouquet of lilies. This must’ve been her home, perhaps it still is. Her eyes hold a smile barely reflected in her face but it’s clear as day that she lends the space her light. Your smile widens. 

So wrapped up are you in your exploration, setting your basket down by the chair and beginning to browse the books that your senses fall short again. You don’t hear the soft shuffling down the corridor, the sound of air-light footsteps approaching until it’s too late. Your back’s to the door, a book held carefully in your hands. 

“I really must lock the front door,” you turn at the sound of a voice in your ear. It’s close, it is so disturbingly close but when you’ve rounded on the source he’s standing mostly in the hall. The book your holding falls in an instant, landing on its spine with a thud. You gasp and cover your mouth. 

“Oh, oh, no---” you start. Someone lives here, you should’ve known by the candles. His face is a wall, vague but apparently annoyed with you standing in his study. You take a step back but there’s nowhere to go, you’re against the bookshelf. “I didn’t mean---” 

“Do you know that you’re trespassing?” he asks, the tone in his voice takes a sudden shift. It’s still death-dry, quiet but markedly less cold. He’s scared you, that seems to bother him. 

You don’t know what you’re supposed to do, if you should kneel and beg forgiveness. Is he going to kill you for this? He might. Your chest tightens and you slowly shake your head. 

“I--- I thought everyone who lived here was dead.” your voice sounds small, reed-like and whispery. The man makes a sound, you press your back against the books until it hurts but you realize that he’s only laughing. 

Laughing? What have you gotten yourself into? 

“Not quite,” he replies. “this castle is my home, I live here. And you---” you cut him off, you don’t know why you do that. 

“Right, trespassing. I should---” you want to say that you should go but you end up with a hand clamped over your mouth again to keep you from saying anything else. He’s important, standing in the doorway like a lord with a sword at his hip and you’ve interrupted him. 

“Leave,” he finishes. You don’t need to be asked twice, you breeze past him without so much as a second thought. You’re less mindful of the broken glass on the floor but there is no option to care about it as you rush from the room and down the hallway you came from. 

You aren’t chased, aren’t forced from the castle but the embarrassment of having been caught snooping is more than reason enough to go. Down the sun-lit stairs and through the throne room, you fail for a third time to realize what’s wrong. 

Half-way down the road away from the dark spot in the forest and you realize your mistake. You left your basket, your flowers and most importantly your journal. 

There’s a ship sinking in your chest as you stop and stare, looking back at the windows and the towers at what you left behind. You need that journal, how could you have forgotten it?

And then you remember the sound of the man’s voice, the way his eyes looked and the sword he carried. If you go back now he won’t care if he scares you. You just know it. But you snuck in once already, didn’t you? You could return---

No, no that’s a wonderful way to get yourself killed. You resign yourself to going home, pondering the loss of the contents of your mother’s medical journal. Yes, the pages were battered and the script necessarily tiny but there was no better text to consult. You were only beginning to add information of your own. 

You watch the sun move for the rest of the day, empty-handed and uncertain how to preserve what information you know without it. Books are rare as jewels in your little village, belonging only to the church as there are no affluent families for miles. What does exist in your sphere is mostly illegible, written in latin with no intention of being added to by common people. Journals of your mother’s kind were worth more than you would ever be able to afford, if you healed everyone you knew a hundred times. 

The courage to return for your most prized possession does not return as easily as it arrived. You putter about your home, thinking and re-thinking just how lucky you may have been to escape. Who would live in a castle like that? Dracula? It simply appeared one day, but you’re unsure of how or precisely when. 

Visitors in the night, the demons, mostly have ceased. Maybe Dracula's dead, or changed his mind. Who was the woman in the painting? Did the man who scared you know her? Did he hurt her? 

For all you know you may have met Dracula, the thought makes your blood run cold as ice water. You shiver in your otherwise warm home. If you go back he might find you faster. He might not let you leave. 

But you need your journal, you won’t be able to record anything else you learn without it. It’s imperative you get it back, despite your fear. Now you know the place is habited, you’ll knock this time and ask for it face-to-face. 

There are worse ways you could handle the situation, it’s true. But you do find yourself putting the whole thing off for a few days, weeding the garden and doing as much as possible before committing to returning to the castle. 

Some things you remember well enough, a man comes to you with a headache after a hard day and you’re able to treat it with ease. But other things, far more serious things will require information that you haven’t put to memory yet. 

On the third day since you fled the man with the deep, dry voice you lace your boots and decide to go back. You tell only your neighbour, the widow with the failing sight that you’ll be going into the wilderness today. If you don’t return, don’t search. Stay away from the castle in the darkest part of the woods. 

Your feet feel heavier than usual setting out as they did before. Mid-afternoon seems the safest time to go, but part of you wonders if the rumours about vampires and sunlight are true with the window that was in the study. Would you be safe in the sun? 

Even the forest seems quiet as you veer off the path and head between the trees. You carry nothing with you, nothing that could be interpreted as hostility. He’ll have to murder you if you do not run fast enough. There are no deer, no singing birds as you start towards the ominous, black shape that becomes more clear as you leave the village behind. 

The castle rises above the trees, you see it before it sees you. It’s just as before, nothing’s changed. It’s not mysteriously disappeared, carrying off your mother’s life’s work and the beginning of your own. It really must be stuck here, never to move again. The feeling that overcomes your heart is strange and somber, similar to when you see a bird unable to fly. At least someone intends to protect this place. 

Maybe the doors will be locked this time, the strange interior barred from you with no way to enter and prove it looked how it did. Regardless, you knock this time. Someone’s home and you refuse to be rude a second time. 

There is no answer and your stomach sinks. Turning away from the door without bothering to try the handle, you sink down onto the steps. Entering uninvited again would be unseemly, just asking for retribution. But you’ve come all this way---

“This belongs to you?” again there’s a voice, so close that someone could be sitting next to you. You let out a shout and turn your head, having to tilt it very far up to see the man from the study with your basket in his left hand. 

Your hand goes to your heart that’s now thundering away. Clumsily, you stand on the second step. Looking up at him is still no easy feat, he towers above you like a statue. 

“I forgot them,” you say, looking down as the man holds out your basket to you. The flowers are mostly withered but untouched. Putting your hand inside, you push them out of the way. But there’s no journal, only the wicker weaving brushes your fingertips. You look up in horror. “Oh, my---”

“Your book?” he asks and there it is, taken from his pocket and held aloft. You reach out and take it from him without a second thought, inspecting it lovingly as if worried about it being damaged. 

“My medical journal,” you say. “I’m a healer,” 

“I thought you were a thief,” he replies and your eyes snap up to his again. You can see him clearly now that you’re not clouded by fear. 

He’s handsome, their’s no denying and pale as the face of the moon. His hair falls to his shoulders, golden-blonde like the woman in the painting. His eyes are orange and seem to stare through you, cutting like knives as he tries to puzzle out whether you’re a threat. The urge to step back, away from that hellfire-gaze is strong but you don’t act on it. 

It’s his teeth that give you pause, that terrify. The fangs and his eyes speak of his true nature, sunlight or no sunlight. He stands in the path of the rays without flinching but there’s no denying it. He’s a vampire.

“No, I was just curious. It’s not every day that a castle shows up in the middle of your walking path, at least not any ordinary castle,” and this is when the discrepancy between expression and tone begin to make themselves very well-understood. The man’s face is still hard, suspicious, but he speaks softly. 

“That it isn’t,” he starts. “my apologies for frightening you when I did. I hoped that the Belmont history would be enough to keep people away.” you give a little shrug. 

“Then I’ll take my journal and I’ll never come back,” you begin, but you’re cut off when he opens your book to the first page. 

“I’m amazed at the wealth of information, which handwriting is yours?” you know what he’s asking and against your better judgement, you get close to him and begin flipping to the last, few pages. You’ve taken to writing in a tiny, cramped style to reserve the remaining space. 

“The one near the back, did you read it?” the man shakes his head. 

“Not all of it, but enough to differentiate,” you can’t help but feel unsettled and his face changes when you step back again. “your village is lucky to have you.” 

Your head tilts to the side, it occurs to you that what may be an invasion of privacy could really be the opposite. 

“They were lucky to have my mother, it was her’s. I’m just picking up where she left off,” his eyes narrow, he looks back down at the journal before closing it and handing it to you. 

“My mother was a doctor,” he tells you, you get the feeling it’s very special to know this. “did you have a chance to find her library while you were--- exploring?” the last word’s tense, an admittance to himself that your intrusion was the antithesis of harmful. You really were just curious. 

You shake your head, the man’s pause is drawn-out. He’s considering something else, now, something that requires more trust than you have. 

“Perhaps you should, healer,” your eyes widen at the implication, you look down at your crumpled journal before putting it in your basket. 

“What’s your name?” you ask. You’ll come to understand the look of uncertainty on his face. He doesn’t know what to say.

Instead of waiting, you give him your name instead. First and last with a look of understanding, but you leave out the middle. For whatever reason, magic has touched this castle and him. Some secrets are meant to be kept. If he’s dangerous, at least he won’t own you by name. 

“Adrian Ţepeş,” he’s made his decision, your smile catches him off-guard. 

“I was worried for a moment that you might say Dracula,” you begin. There’s a tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“I’m beginning to lose track of how many times I’ve been mistaken for him,” it’s a softer saying, a joke that makes your smile widen. 

If he’s not Dracula, then, who is he? Perhaps a brother, or a nephew. Adrian bears a striking resemblance to the woman in the painting, same blonde hair and slight smile. Maybe that was his mother, you wonder how she died. 

“But this is his castle, isn’t it?” you ask, tearing your eyes away from his changing, orange gaze. You look at the spires, at the windows and the towers. 

“It was, yes,” was, that speaks of more safety than names can give. You tilt your head, looking at Adrian again. 

“Was your mother a good doctor?” he barely needs a second to consider the answer. 

“The very best,” he replies and the force of admiration in his voice is admirable. She’s dead, this doctor-mother and you understand the feeling. 

“If I can really see the library, you’ll have to let me leave. My village may have been luckier to have my mother but I’m all they’ve got come winter.”

“You can leave when you like,” he says. He promises without stating as much, you can tell. 

“Well,” you begin. You take the few steps forward that fear tried to undo. You’re still cautious, perhaps. Worried about the teeth, absolutely. “I suppose I’ll have to risk it. Lead the way.”


	2. The Sawhorse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL, UH, OOPS??? finally checked that dusty word doc out, my badddddd. but i've decided this is gonna be longer than three parts?? so there's that??

“This place is a conspiracy,” you say with a half-glance over your shoulder. Adrian guides you from a decidedly rear position, you walk ahead of him with no idea of where you’re going.   
“In what way?” he asks, you can’t help your smile. He takes everything so seriously, it’s charming. 

“In the way that I don’t know for sure at any given point if the room I’ve just been in will exist once I’ve left it!” you exclaim and to your never ending joy, Adrian joins you in smiling. He seems bashful about the castle’s intricacies, disturbed by its strangeness. You like it here, absolutely, but it’s a learning curve. 

“When I was a child I wondered the same thing. But there are a few, key rooms that always manage to stay in one place.” You slow your steps enough to let him fall in line next to you. Getting close to him in any sense is impossible, but he allows it this time. 

“How polite of them,” you say. It’s honest facetiousness on your part, but you can’t help the little shiver that runs up your spine all the same. 

This place isn’t haunted, he is. Adrian walks with memories of the living and the dead, you hear him whispering to the shadows sometimes. But it never fills you with fear, you’ve found. Only sadness, deep-rooted sadness that you wish you didn’t understand. 

He’s sparse with personal details, but you’ve coaxed from him an admission that the large hole leading from the second floor corridor to the library was caused by a heroic attempt at patricide.   
Adrian’s caught you in a tiny children’s bed room with a hideous bloodstain permanently affixed to the floor. You were apologizing for weeks and the door is now locked. 

His home is largely, however, yours to explore. Despite the odd dissonance between the mystery of what happened here and the way he seems unwilling to feel things, you could be happy here.   
All you wish for, you suppose, is a chance to help him. 

You’ve never seen him cry but the remnants of redness around his eyes is unmistakable. There’s a monster in your woods and he is so terribly alone. 

Perhaps it’s why you visit as often as you do. Your fascination with his mother’s life’s work is real, gripping you in a way you’re familiar with. But to say that the attraction is purely intellectual would be a blatant lie. 

He has friends, this Adrian. One of them wields a whip and is a Belmont, something you have to learn how to accept. The stories, despite their exaggerated details, run deep. The other friend is a woman, the magic user with the quick hands. You could smell the crackling electricity of her power despite never laying eyes on her. 

How difficult it must be for him to exist in the stillness of her wake with only a head full of too-realistic memories and lightning on the air. 

It isn’t as if you’ve experienced any grand adventures with him. But as you’re taken back to the library you’re reminded that may not be so terrible a thing. 

You watch the gaping hole in the wall. It does not move, never does but you can feel it watching you. You pick up books even still, months after the catastrophic battle and mourn a few, singed pages. 

“Will you stay with me?” You ask when he begins to look uncomfortable in the space that should be home. It’s unfair to ask this him, you know it, but you can’t help but feel an all-consuming urge to give him company. He meditates too much in his father’s empty chair. 

“If that’s what you wish,” he replies, “the filing here has certainly seen better days.” Adrian assumes the role of library catalogue and you don’t have the heart to let that stand.

“I know where things are,” you start, adding in at the last second, “but I wouldn’t rely on that, of course.” You hear a soft exhale behind you, a reserved laugh from your most esteemed companion. “I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Of course,” Adrian continues, but seems to consider what you’ve said more carefully. He hums, brief and tuneless as if contemplating the options before asking, “What about?” 

“Things,” you say, it isn’t very helpful. You place a book back on a shelf and look at him again. His expression is unsatisfied. “You’re very nearly a patron of my studies but I know almost nothing about you.” 

Only that he had a mother who died for what you’re attempting to continue. And his father was Dracula, wasn’t that a nasty shock? 

“Perhaps it’s better that way,” he replies. It’s a dark thing to say, but he delivers it with the air-light tone that accompanies most of his jokes. You grin at him, broadly. 

“I’d like to know you,” you aren’t sure why you decide on that, but it makes him break eye contact quickly. “Can I ask you something?” 

After a short pause, Adrian makes his decision. 

“Yes,” he says and he’s looking at you again. But the smile is gone from his eyes, they’re lukewarm and on the edge of confused. Rather than mill about between ruined stacks of books, you sink into a nearby armchair. 

“What’s your favourite colour?” it’s a safe enough question, the first that popped into your head. Bizarrely, you admit, you want to see that smile in his eyes again. It works with some success. 

“My what?” he puts thought into his answer when you repeat yourself with a childish giggle. The man makes a show out of it, sitting int he armchair perpendicular to yours and resting his chin on his fist. “I’ve never given it much thought. Perhaps burgundy, or purple.” 

You chime in with your agreement on purple just as he turns his head. Windows are scarce in the castle, something you find deeply oppressive, but one is angled perfectly facing the north wall. 

Adrian casts his eyes towards it and says, “Blue, actually. My favourite colour is blue.” 

The daylight outside shines with a benevolence that he’s missed for years. Adrian doesn’t stare at it for very long, looking back to you as if he hopes you didn’t notice a thing.

It calls another question to your mind, one with heavier implications than a favourite colour. The pause makes him uncomfortable as you debate asking, but ultimately decide it’ll do no harm.

“You can walk in the sunlight?” you ask. After another beat, he nods. “Are all dhampir’s so lucky?”

“I wouldn’t know, I’ve never met another.” he looks at you with a terrible uncertainty that you want to end. You restrict your questions to surface-level stuff. 

“Blue’s a good colour, it’s very heroic,” you say. You’re not sure why, but that makes him smile again. 

“If you think so,” the conversation lapses into a comfortable silence after that, with books returned to their proper shelves. Every so often you’re distracted by something anatomical. You’re shocked at the sheer volume of manuscripts.

“My whole lifetime’s passed in the space between when some of these textbooks were written,” you say over your shoulder. Adrian hums, but the bridge of his thin nose is stuffed in a book of poems. 

“It’s a shame,” he replies, as if to prove he’s listening.

“Isn’t it just? If there were more arguments about these sorts of things— perhaps a bit less fear of the church—” you’ve picked up a dusty-looking copy of Galen’s On the Natural Faculties and now sneer at the cover. 

A complaint about taboos surrounding the dissection of human bodies for scientific purposes dies on your tongue when you look at Adrian. He’s stiff at the shoulders, no longer reading his book but instead staring at the far wall. 

Something you said’s upset him, clearly. But he presents as otherwise unbothered a few seconds after you noticed. You frown and set Galen aside, ready to antagonize him another day. 

“Adrian?” you ask. There’s a minute flinch when the sound of his name lands on his ears. “Did I—”

The book closes with a hollow thunk, placed on the seat-side table very quickly. You’re almost afraid he’ll stand and leave, leave you without even a parting word. But Adrian looks to you, his head cocked to the side. 

“Did you what?” he asks. But you’re unfazed. Very few things your certain about, but you said something that concerned him. Still, if he doesn’t want to talk about it—

“Never mind,” you say, casting a sorry glance back at all the books. But you have to make up for whatever it is hurt Adrian. You hold out a hand and motion for him to follow you as you leave the room.

“Where are we going?” he’s beside you in a flurry of blond hair and black coat. It’s almost shocking, but you smile up at him and utter nary a gasp. You’re getting good at this. 

The library sets you on edge, you want to say. You do not. 

“Since you’re a daywalker, quite like myself, I thought you might want to walk. In the day, I mean,” you explain. You look at him so fondly, Adrian’s inability to speak for a few, precious seconds couldn’t have anything to do with that, right? 

“You did ask me to stay with you,” he replies. 

“Mhm,” you hum, “and you agreed. It’s too nice a day to be reading, I think I’d like to hunt for herbs.” 

There is no room in the castle identified as belonging to you, but a little alcove on the second floor has become something of a home-away-from-home. Your basket sits there in the late-afternoon sunlight and your battered journal sits within it. 

You take it on one arm and hold the other out for Adrian. That beaming, lovely smile makes him take it. He wants, quietly, not to see that smile fade. 

“Do you get out much?” you ask, walking through the throne room that smells like old dead and dust. “Not a judgement, just a question,” you add. 

“If you asked a handful of years ago, the answer would’ve been yes,” he replies. You’re nearly surprised he does. “It’s less true, now.” 

“All the more reason to walk. The castle is stunning, but—” Adrian cuts you off as he glances at the high-vaulted ceiling. You’re given a quick, casual smirk. 

“It’s as oppressive,” he begins, “as it is wondrous.” 

“I would never say something so insulting about your home,” you reply with an air of faux-offence. Adrian’s nudged gently in the ribs by your elbow, a gesture that brings back sudden memories of a woman in blue robes. “But you have all the right to, I shan’t disagree.”

He recovers, not wanting a repeat of the scene that played out in the library. You walk very close to him, it’s not unpleasant. 

The sunshine greets you when he pushes the heavy door open. It’s chilly, though lovely and you start off down the steps with Adrian in tow. If you were to look back, you’d see his momentary look of shock before it melted into sentiment. 

You’ve done your best to wear a path away from the castle, but you veer off into the woods instead of taking him home. 

You’re made happy by all the things meant to bring humans joy. There are smiles given to every delicate touch of nature, the singing birds and the rushing river winding onward towards a lake. Adrian’s never been there, you suppose. Perhaps one day you’ll convince him.   
But not today, you tell yourself. This is just a short walk, something of an apology and a way to brighten his dour mood. 

Adrian lets him leave you, in spite of how much he was enjoying your warmth at his side. You rush to the river, journal in hand to compare botanical drawings. 

You left your pen in the alcove on the second floor, he noticed. It’s where you do your writing, the window with the best view to look out on. But, he knows as you skim through the pages of your mother’s medical journal, you’ve run out of space. 

Nothing his father ever did was right, Adrian knows that. But he can still admit that the human tendency to dangle knowledge just out of the reach of those who could do it best is thoughtlessly cruel. 

“Ah!” you exclaim and successfully pull him from his thoughts. Adrian’s not sure what it says about him that he assumes you’ve been hurt. 

You’re on your knees by the riverbed, however, delighting in some plant of intense fascination. You look at him over your shoulder. 

“Lavender bushes, Adrian!” you wave him over. “Not the most exciting thing in the world but exactly what I’ve been running low on.” 

“How interesting,” he says. There’s an unexpected truth to the way he says it, like he might actually be interested. “What do you use it for?” 

“Poultices,” you tell him, “something to ease aches and pains.” 

He hums again, still interested but unwilling to leer over your shoulder. You stand with a fistful of purple buds and look them over very carefully. 

“They’re good for sleep tonics, too,” you continue.

He can pinpoint the exact second another question pops into your head. It’s alarmingly charming.

“Do you sleep?” you ask. Before he can answer, you keep talking. “No,” you pause, before seeming to think the better of it, “what do I know?” 

“More than most,” Adrian admits it easily. He’s smiling though he hasn’t fully noticed he’s doing it. It’s a truly welcome sight. “But I do— sleep, that is. In a sense. I did for a year underneath a city named Gresit.” 

Your eyes widen, just as he expected them to. It’s uncommon he encounters fascination instead of horror. 

Adrian lets the sun warm his face as you ask him the how, the when, the why. 

“My father’s rage was limitless after the death of my mother,” he says. You tilt your head again, that curiosity abating for the sake of decency.

To your credit, you look genuinely sorry for his loss. 

“He lashed out against me when I tried to stop him,” Adrian continues, “I needed time to recuperate.” 

“You needn’t hear again from me how awful that sounds,” you say, “but you know your father was very sick when he hurt you.” 

“Yes,” Adrian says. The light and the warmth and the beauty around him feels very cold all of a sudden. It’s distant, untouchable. Even in the face of happiness, he finds ways to make himself miserable. 

You could read the sorrow on his face for miles, it’s what forces your hand. It makes you reach out, picking up not his arm but his cold hand this time. 

Adrian allows it, though he’s uncertain as to why. His hand is held, palm-up as if expectant of a gift.

You thought once that whatever lived in such a hellish place might demand offerings. Blood, bones, body parts came to mind even though all you carried were petals. But flowers, you find, suffice when you put the prettiest-looking lavender spring in the cup of his palm.

“Beautiful and practical,” you tell him with a knowing smile, “not unlike yourself.” 

Adrian stares at the flower to keep from staring at you. Its short, stiff petals are unbothered by the gentle breeze that’s blowing your hair away from your eyes. 

You’ve never seen Dhampir tears, but for a moment Adrian is terrified that you might. His long fingers close carefully around the little spring, he summons up a thankful smile and swallows the lump pressing at his throat. 

It’s difficult to describe, the way you speak about his father might be misinformed or lenient but they’re near-exactly how Adrian thinks of him. When you speak about a tired, lost, deeply ill man named Dracula it is with the full honesty that you’ve never in your life thought about killing him. 

You never wanted to do him harm, Adrian wonders if something like that could ever belong in such a giving heart. You listen to the breadcrumbs of information he drops about the man who raised him, you pick through the underbrush like a magpie searching for little treasures. 

Adrian misses Trevor every day, Sypha several times every day. But they never thought of his father as something once human. You do. You’re so very sorry. 

“My mother’s name was Lisa,” he says very suddenly. “It occurs to me I never told you the name of the woman who’s body of work you now learn from.” 

“Lisa,” you repeat, willing to let any prior topic lie still in the grass. Poor Adrian, you think. “I couldn’t find any names in the journals, they were all in first person.” 

You reach into your basket, dropping lavender springs too ugly for his hand on top of the leather cover of your hand-me-down journal. But you touch the torn cover so gently, like comforting an old friend. 

“She reminds me so much of the person I wanted to be— when I saw my mother work, that is,” you say. 

“There’s far too much knowledge shut up in Dracula’s castle for it to waste away,” Adrian admits. 

He’s managed to make eye contact again, his hand holding the gift of lavender is carefully placed in his pocket. It retracts, empty.

“I like to think it’s better for it to be read,” you start, “instead of ending up as bedding for the rats.” 

Alistair’s soft, strange laugh rustles like the tree leaves overhead again. You’ve heard it before and tend to when you make jokes more macabre than would be welcome in polite company. You allow yourself to smile alone. 

“It’s not my castle that’s infested,” he says, “but if it is, they likely crawled up from the old Belmont library.” 

You resist the urge to shudder again at the name. You can’t help that you’re most familiar with lies, although Adrian hardly seems to notice your bodily, negative reaction.

“You’re so mean to someone you’re so fond of,” you say, “I hope to meet this Trevor Belmont one day, if only so he can know just how much you care.” 

“And what makes you think I’m fond of him?” Adrian asks. His laugh’s died but his smile’s still there. He shows off two, white fangs without a thought towards scaring you. They never have before. 

In fact, you lean in with your basket of flowers and grin back. No fear in your eyes, it’s the most beautiful sight he’s ever seen. 

“You feel,” you tell him with a delicate huff. You’re moving again, stepping around his curiously tall form. At the last second, your shoulder brushes against him. “I’d have to be blind not to notice it.” 

Adrian doesn’t know if it’s mercy that keeps you from jabbing at the sore spot of his emotions. He was open with Sypha and Trevor, for the most part. But you’re painfully new, potentially not to be trusted. But he doesn’t like the confidence with which you make such a statement, even if it is true. He doesn’t know your intentions. 

You start off without another word, again. It’s becoming a habit, both you walking and him following. You take to the path again, swinging your basket. The half-turn of your head tells him you were at least slightly worried he wouldn’t come. 

That extra smile, the one that makes it look best like you care is a needless addition. It only serves to strike his sternum, to make the inside of his chest thump with a useless heartbeat. 

He’s never had need of it before, Adrian knows. He wanders back to the castle with you.


End file.
